Is this what the EFF, ACLU, etc. actually recommend these days? Or do they want regular Joe Citizen to be willing to subject themselves to duress by customs?

If most people erase their devices, it's a kind of giving up. Accepting data loss (hopefully temporarily, but not everything is stored in the cloud, e.g. SMS messages, at least in Android phones with the original texting app) is punative. And disproportionate. And resets are a PITA for non-technical people. As a work around to avoid being harassed, to me it proves we've lost the privacy fight.

I was under the impression that going through with blank phone/laptop would in itself be considered suspicious. Is that not the case?

That's workaround - not solution.